Container Gardening Complete

Creative Projects for Growing Vegetables and Flowers in Small Spaces

Jessica Walliser

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781591865261, 9781591866503
• eBook ISBN: 9780760359600
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

Container Gardening Complete has everything you need to know to successfully garden in a small space, including step-by-step directions, photographs, and information on more than 125 plants.

The ideal book for urban gardeners, indoor gardeners, and vegetable gardeners, Container Gardening Complete is a thorough visual guide that will get you growing quickly! Whether you are growing vegetables, fruits, or flowers on an apartment balcony; creating a small vegetable garden for personal use; or decorating steps and walkways, this hard working book is your go-to resource.

The methods described in this book are foolproof and easy to follow, with step-by-step directions and photographs, scalable projects for differing needs, and many great ideas for upscaled containers from things you have around your home. You’ll get to know the ins and outs of gardening in a small space, from the importance of drainage, irrigation, and other watering concerns to ornamental combinations of plants, and the very best vegetables, fruits, and non-edibles for container gardening.

chapter 1
Getting Started

The best thing about container gardening is that anyone can do it. You don’t need a lot of space, money, or time to grow a few containers filled with gorgeous plants. All you really need is the desire to grow something, a little inspiration, a touch of creativity, and a couple of bucks (and heck, if you’re willing to get really creative, you can even cross that last one off the list). All the information you need to grow flowers, vegetables, fruits, herbs, and more is right here at your fingertips, in this book. For newbies, container gardening is a great way to jump into the world of gardening without needing a plot of land. Or, for more experienced gardeners, it’s an excellent way to take your existing outdoor living space to the next level, without having to invest a significant amount of time or money. If you put a little effort into planning your container garden before you get started, the payoff will extend way beyond growing a few pretty plants.

By carefully considering what you’re going to grow and how you’re going to grow it, you’ll be able to harvest your own fresh, homegrown produce month after month, or enjoy the season-long color of ornamental flower- and foliage-filled containers while providing habitat for butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and lots of other living creatures. There are many benefits of growing in containers, but to reap those benefits, you have to start with the basics, which brings us to the topic of this chapter: getting started.

It doesn’t take much room to grow a container garden if you spend some time planning before you get started. Even a small window ledge will do.

THE THREE PILLARS OF SUCCESSFUL CONTAINER GARDENING

Whether you’re growing edible plants, evergreen shrubs, or flowering tropicals in your container garden, good planning is essential. The first step in growing a successful container garden is putting some careful consideration into building a good foundation for your plants. Many failed container gardens are the result of poor planning and not understanding the importance of setting your plants up for success right from the very beginning. As gardeners, we get so jazzed for the actual planting process that we sometimes forget all the important details that need to be in place before we even think about sowing a single seed. We love traipsing through the garden center picking out the prettiest plants and pouring through the seed catalogs on a quest to find the perfect pepper variety, but we don’t always take the time to pick out the right potting soil, for example. It’s a lot of fun to select plants, tuck roots into the soil, and sink seeds down into a pot, but it’s not as much fun to tend to the nitty-gritty details. But if you neglect the less-glamorous tasks that are the focus of this chapter, all those pretty plants and perfect seeds will be unhappy, and you’ll be a disappointed and discouraged gardener.

There are three pillars that comprise the foundation of successful container gardening, and if they’re not in place, your chances of having a productive container garden are greatly reduced. Without the right kind of container, the right potting mix, and the right location, things may not turn out the way you planned. The rest of this chapter carefully examines each of these three pillars and gives you the information needed to establish a strong foundation for your container garden.

The three foundational pillars to successful container gardening include selecting the right kind of container, filling it with the right potting mix, and placing it in the best growing conditions.

Choosing a Container

A quick internet search on container gardening results in well over five million hits on the subject. Many of them begin by telling you that you can use just about any object capable of holding soil as a garden container. While this may be true, it isn’t necessarily the best advice. It may lull a new gardener into thinking she can plant just about any type of plant into any type of container and have great success, which just isn’t the case. Yes, you can use a tea kettle or a boot or a coffe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Getting Started
• Chapter 2 Designing and Planting Your Containers
• Chapter 3 Caring for Your Containers
• Chapter 4 Troubleshooting
• Chapter 5 Harvesting and Seasonal Considerations
• Chapter 6 More Container Concepts
• Resource Guide
• Index
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Copyright